Thursday, May 28, 2009

I've always played pretty low stakes at poker. At certain times I've had it in my head that I would like to build the roll and play higher and much higher, but whenever I even conceive of it I like to remind myself that I play poker for fun and the money is just a little side benefit. So, I've played for 5 years now and never played higher than 200NL online.

The truth is I've always thought of poker as something I'm a bit too attached to, and it sort of concerns me.

It's not the love of gambling, I don't get drawn to casino pits and I don't like to lose money.

It's not the love of money -- admittedly I've turned my original $100 in deposits into multiple thousands a few times over but it's never been anything that would change my life.

So, I try and keep my poker playing as an interesting hobby, and the way I do that versus making it a serious life-altering hobby is to keep cashing out. Hell, I've never had more than $5k in my roll at any one time -- that's fiddlesticks in the poker world.

I don't know if I'm wrong for taking the view I do, hell, I probably could have made hundreds of thousands from poker if I had kept growing my bankroll back in the good old days when PartyPoker and the USA were still doing business, but I chose not to dive too deep for fear it would consume me.

Maybe I just love to win, feel I can win here, and that's why I like it? I'm not sure. I even try and stay away from the game once in a while but I always come back. I'm guessing I'll never lose that. As long as it feels good to slaughter a donkey, I'll probably keep giving it a shot.

I played Matt in a series of $10 heads up sit-n-go no-limit hold'em matches last night for the first (and possibly last) time. I know Matt's game quite well now, and I think he's still a bit baffled by my thought patterns -- I'm a bit crazy when I play I guess but it makes sense to *me*. It started out with the usual coolers (AA v QQ preflop) and became an all out war, which is what great, brilliant poker should be. I think the final score was 15 - 7 for me so I definitely got the best of him and was helped by a few suckouts along the way. But the war, the little snipes and big swipes at each other... the bloodletting... that stuff is FUN.

I guess this post won't mean much to anyone but me, but that's what's going on in my head regarding this silly game. Hopefully it was a better read than my last one :)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

So, my #1 fan Matt is complaining I don't update this site enough. I guess he didn't hear enough about how much my golf game sucks on the weekend or this week via MSN.

Let's start with Saturday, well, I sucked. I played like poo and couldn't drive the ball well at all. This led to an 80. I also made no skins (first donation of the year) and lost a $5 match to #1 fan. BOO.

Sunday I went to the club before our tournament at Grand Niagara to hit some balls. I was trying to sort out my driver, well, it didn't work at all. I sprayed it right all day which is opposite my normal flight of high draw, then once in a while hit it left into something when I had adjusted aiming left for the pushes. A very smooth 83 was coming my way for my second tour event. Yes, I suck.

I have figured out that my driver is officially dead, as the damn thing has had a little crack for 2 weeks that is growing. I'm hoping Cobra does the right thing (A DRIVER ISNT SPOSED TO BREAK ITS FACE I DONT CARE IF ITS 5 YEARS OLD) and fixes me up with replacement gear but I won't hold my breath. That means I'll be playing something new this weekend... what will it be?

Kudos to Harry who of the 3 of us didn't completely suck and shot a quite reasonable 79 to tie in 10th spot. Top 10 is pretty good indeed. He's also crushing #1 Fan and I in the standings. Hopefully not for long though.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Exclaimed Harry as he took an ugly poke at the ball this weekend. It's something I had never heard on a golf course before -- farting during swing that is, farting in general in the great outdoors is commonplace among men, obviously.

Yes, yes, I neglected my post last week. There wasn't much to talk about, honestly. After somehow hacking my way into the tour - it was an awful round, honestly - I've been a mix of good and OK on the course. I'm making a few birdies a day, mainly because I can still putt and not because of stellar wedges or anything. There have actually been a lot of mistakes off the tee and in the fairway, so the short game is keeping me sane.

I wish I were playing more interesting golf, but I'm really just grinding it around. This past weekend was 75 from the blues, 77 from the blacks, and 82 from the blacks. The 82 contained 3 doubles and was plain ugly, but I had a decent closing on the back nine and made money with a birdie skin.

Poker wise, not much is up either. Tis the season for golf I guess, because I'm not really drawn to play much of the two card game except when I watch High Stakes Poker on GSN. By the way, if you're bored GSN has all the seasons of HSP on Youtube over m'yaw. I played a bit last night, ran them over like usual though I had a 2 buyin downswing followed by a 3 buyin upswing. One thing I would like to note is that even the microlimit tables on full tilt are way harder than they used to be. I mean, the players aren't sophisticated or anything but they are trying to isolate me (the live one obv.) and do play back at me a bit post-flop. I caught a few guys floating me so i fired pot sized turn bets at them with my usual holding (air) and of course they fold.

Anyway, that's it. I know, boring... I'm bored just writing it but this site needed something posted. OH, Matt beat me twice this weekend, good for him and good for the rest of us who were tired of hearing him complain all day. Now, if only he would stop taking 45 seconds over the golf ball each time we could get a quick round in once in a while.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Well, at least I played golf this weekend. It wasn't by any means good golf, but at least it was golf.

On Saturday morning we skipped out at the wee hour of 7:15 at the club to try and squeek in before Opening Day. It turns out 8 people in total had the same idea, so we hardly saw another soul on the course which was nice. I for the most part played OK, but somehow accumulated 4 double bogeys to shoot a stinky 83 including going double/par/double on the last 3. I was not in a great frame of mind after that finish, but brushed it off fairly easily.

Sunday was the qualifier for the niagara mens tour. This was the first year I agreed to give it a try as my Sundays aren't as work-clogged now. We had quite a bit of representation from our club at the qualifier, and of course Matt is exempt from last year. I went to the range before the round, hit balls, it felt good. I had no reason to think I couldn't get around a reasonable score, but unfortunately that's what happened.

I really can't say I played all that badly. I won't bore you with hole by hole details but my driver (when I used it) was fine, rescue off the tee was good even. My approaches to greens were OK and I hit or barely missed quite a few of them and chipping was fine too. Unfortunately, my putting wasn't working at all. Inside 3 feet I made everything as normal but I missed everything outside of it. Lag putts were awful, 10-15 foot birdie putts often slid 5 feet by, it was ugly.

I had my first ever true 4-putt today and i won't even criticize myself too much over it. The 6th hole on the back nine was playing into a hard right to left wind. My approach left me on the front left of a middle right pin but unfortunately the course designer had designed a two tiered green and some dick put the pin right at the top of the massive ridge. My first putt ran up the crest, slowed, and leaked down and back 15 feet away from the pin. My second putt ran up the elephant's back and slid 5 feet by (couldn't leave it short -- was too easy to have it roll back down), and I missed it... No excuses.

The other funny incident happened on the front nine, I had 70 yards into a green from the fairway and had a 60 degree wedge in my hands. My ball landed 15 feet from the pin on TOP of my playing partners ball, his ball shot all the way off the green past the pin and into the rough (to be placed back, of course) and mine kicked backward and spun back to the front edge leaving a 60 or so foot putt. Naturally, I couldn't make it down in 2. It just wasn't my day on the greens.

I really didn't play that badly, really. Sure I couldn't make putts but I definitely couldn't score -- shot 84 on the par 71 course. So yeah, I shot the wrong sort of score on the wrong day. No excuses, that's golf for ya. I'm pretty happy with my golf swing, but I don't think I'll be using it around that particular tour this year.

Oh, and I think i might have lost $2 to harry on saturday, broke even on bets otherwise.